Helping Neighbors Food Pantry

Churches, Synagogue Cooperate in Jonesboro

Before Helping Neighbors Food Pantry was established, many religious organizations in the Jonesboro area operated small pantries to assist hungry individuals and families who came to their attention.

“At the church I was associated with, we had a small food pantry. But I know I’d look at the food in that room and be hard pressed to make a meal out of it. We’ve have crackers but no soup, or we’d have spaghetti noodles but nothing to put on top of them,” says Marie-Jose Patton, treasurer of Helping Neighbors.

Five years ago, 24 churches and the local synagogue joined their food relief efforts into a single service for hungry residents of Craighead County. The result, Patton says, is an organization that can serve many more people because it has more food and more hours of operation at a single, convenient location.

Helping Neighbors has no paid employees but served 23,235 people in 1998 through the work of more than 150 volunteers. The pantry operated on a total of $50,000 in 1998, and 85 percent of its funding comes from gifts, the rest comes from the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

Almost half of the clients are school-aged children whose families have income below the poverty line. Many others are elderly residents living solely on Social Security benefits, which may be less than $500 a month, Patton says.

Eligible recipients are allowed to visit the pantry once every 30 days, and they receive enough food for four to five days each time they visit.

“Some of our clients have been with us every month since 1995, and they’ll be with us till they die,” Patton says.